Jack's Last Summer

Part 9

Garland took Ghost into her arms and pressed her face into the soft fur of his stomach. She held him there for a moment, inhaling his familiar warm puppy smell.

“This is a nice place.” Seth remarked and stretched his legs out in the sand in front of him.

“Yeah. I’m glad Jack brought us along.” Garland returned the gesture of small talk.

There was a silence. She set down Ghost and clasped her hands between her knees, taking in the night to ward off her approaching emotions. As if she was practicing meditation, Garland started focusing on her toes and brought her consciousness upwards.

The sand had finally completely cooled and the damp grains clung to the skin of her feet like breadcrumbs, continuing up the backs of her calves where it had been flicked or fallen from the driftwood. Against her bare legs the driftwood was flaky and uncomfortable. Every now and then something would move in the driftwood and make Garland twitch for fear of it being some kind of creepy crawly dragged from the depths of hell to terrorize her. Instinctively she pulled her legs up and braced the bottoms of her feet on the surface of the driftwood.

Her back ached dully. It had been a long day of being squashed into the uncomfortable back seat of a jolting van and Garland’s body was feeling the consequences. Her hands felt dry from the salt and the spaces beneath her fingernails were crusty with sand.

There was an uncomfortable tight feeling around her face, the kind you get when you’ve been swimming in the ocean without wiping the salt off afterwards. Vaguely Garland wondered if her skin was visibly tighter and if seawater could be disguised and sold as some kind of new and improved anti-wrinkle agent. That’s a million dollar scam idea.

Probably not.

Oh well.

“How long do you think….” Seth trailed off.

“I don’t know.” She sighed.

“And what do we do when it happens? And when it gets bad?” He asked again.

“I don’t know, Seth! I’ve got no idea. We’re in a house with our dying best friend, waiting until he dies and we can’t do anything but watch, and I don’t know what we can do to help because none of us are doctors and I don’t know what we do when he dies, or when he gets really sick, I don’t know I don’t know I don’t know!” Garland burst into tears, the warm moisture mingling with the dry layer of remaining salt on her cheeks. She stood and walked away from the fire, down the beach and towards the water. The cool water lapped at her toes and washed the sand from her ankles. She shivered.

A large warm hand closed around her slim upper arm, accompanied by the familiar and comforting smell of Seth.

“I’m sorry.” She choked and wiped the tears from her face.

“It’s okay, love. We can get through this together.” He wrapped an arm around her waist as Garland pressed her tearstained face into his shoulder and sobbed.